Shooting Exercises ?

[M4Fundi]

I know working the whole body properly is best, but are there any "shooting specific" exercises that work on muscles or muscle groups that we (shooters) need to develop to be stronger than the average bear when wielding a weapon effectively ?

My splits stink and I think they might improve some if I can be a little stronger here or there...

(I'm shooting as much as can)

[mkmckinley]

I'm not a competitive shooter but military. When we do PMT we shoot a LOT. What tends to get sore are shoulders, lower back, and sometimes even hands/ forearms. If I was going to choose exercises specifically for shooting I would focus on those areas, personally.

[Oscar 319]

Draw stroke and dryfire. Lots of it.

[sniperfrog]

A good excersise is to use a ten pound dumbell and hold it out in front of you like you would a pistol with one hand. Squeeze the shit out of it as well. Hold it for about 5-10 seconds and do as many reps as you can.

[TomD]

Jessie Abbate does P90X.

[glockeyed]

A good excersise is to use a ten pound dumbell and hold it out in front of you like you would a pistol with one hand. Squeeze the shit out of it as well. Hold it for about 5-10 seconds and do as many reps as you can.

i have doing something similar lately. 10lbs in each hand, i start at the hip and "draw" 2 hand pistol, and alt between that and rifle position. i don't hold it out there too long, but do reps until my arms and shoulders are jello.

[RogerinTPA]

Wrist, forearm curls, squeezing a tennis ball while driving, normal PT (free weights, PU,SU, running, walking, biking, not all on the same day).

[VMI-MO]

Nate Morrison from Alpin Gruppe has said it best "train movements not muscles". So what this means is train the different movements involved in shooting to become more proficient at them.

When you are approaching this you have to understand a few things about shooting.

1)The act of presenting the weapon to target, acquiring a sight picture and pulling the trigger as necessary is not as easy as simply “I am going to work my shoulders out a lot”. There are a lot of muscle groups that go into the firing platform.
-Your legs will have a slight bend in them so you will have strain on those muscle groups
-If you have an aggressive stance your back and abdomen will be under strain.
-Your shoulders and upper back will be doing a lot of work to support and drive the weapon.
-Your forearms and grip will be involved in actually firmly grasping the weapon.

You stated you understood about whole body fitness, well shooting is kinda a whole body thing.

2)Once you have looked at the muscle groups involved in your weapon platform you have to then look at what you want them do to. Simply doing 5reps of this, 7 of that is not going to help you, waste your time and effort, and potentially lead to injury. There are several things we can train into our muscles

-Strength: there are actually many different types of strength: Absolute strength (lifting a BFG once) Explosive strength (lifting it really fast and suddenly) static strength etc

-Endurance/ Stamina: this is being able to repeat presenting a rifle numerous times.

What you are training towards determines how you need to train it
If you are training for strength you need to work low reps (1-5) higher sets (4-7) with a longer rest period using close to your 1 rep max

If you are training for endurance you need to do hi reps (25-60) low sets (2-4) with shorter rest periods at low weight.

For me personally, I feel my presentation speed increases from 10000s of times of doing it. Not so much to build up those muscles, but to make the motion memory so that it becomes a natural extension of my body. This way I know where my sights fall, I know how my cheek feels, I know what my arm position is etc….

Now I do work to build up my endurance so that my rifle does not make me its bitch on a long shoot. For this I do the following

3 rounds
30 arm raises w/ 18lb Kettle bell (both arms)
30 press outs w/ 12lb dumbbell(both arms)

For the arm raises I use a KB because it allows me to mimic my exact grip that I use on my blaster. When I do this I mimic the exact way I shoot. My aggressive forward leaning stance, my arm posture, how I crane my neck and leg position are all the same from shooting to when I work out. I am not trying to get a beach body or do “curls for the girls”. I am trying to build up endurance in my firing stance so that I can, in theory, shoot bad guys all day long.

For the press outs I mimic my exact stance, posture and movement from the workout to the range. This ensures that I am training the movement.

To prevent falling into a rut I change up things. Also the above is only a small component of a much larger workout program. I programmed this to fit and fill a need I specifically had.

If you really want to get better at shooting as a whole, I 100% suggest you take on a program that develops a strong core with a heavy emphasis on functional fitness.

SIDETRACK:
I have seen P90x work for some but I have very strong personal feelings against it.



PJ

[ryanm]

A good excersise is to use a ten pound dumbell and hold it out in front of you like you would a pistol with one hand. Squeeze the shit out of it as well. Hold it for about 5-10 seconds and do as many reps as you can.

+1 for this

Depending on what weights are available, if you have plates with built in handles, do the same thing with a 10lb plate gripping at the handle and not supporting the weight with your thumb. Can also do a modified hammer curl with those weights gripping the plate and forcing a solid grip on the weight while curling. If you don't lock it with your thumb, these will be very hard at first.